Have you ever experienced this, where you are in a situation, you react to it and almost at the same time you hear yourself think or talk and then wonder what is the matter with you? I certainly have. It’s an interesting and odd feeling when it happens, almost as if you were talking to someone else. But aren’t we?

In my mind this is exactly what is happening in those moments. We are literally seeing ourselves in action, we notice what we are thinking, and doing or saying as a result and we literally wonder what is wrong with us. But we never stop to see this moment as impactful as it actually is. We are actually watching our ego in action. We are being the observer. And what do we usually do with it? We laugh it off or turn into a funny story to tell others. Every single one of those times is a missed opportunity to see something beyond the usual story of who we tell ourselves we are.

Rather than thinking of it as standing next to yourself, think of it as being next to yourself. Because we have to be in a moment of awareness or being in order to see ourselves operate like that. That’s a beautiful thing. We get to be aware of the part in us that is doing the reacting, the story telling, in other words: the ego. The one who is aware, is the being. This is good news to me, because I used to believe for years that all this being stuff was for the evolved, the enlightened and real devoted spiritual people, and that unless I completely changed my life circumstances I would never get to be. Not the case.

Being is what we are all the time, whether we believe it or not. There is nothing we can do to change that. Whether we are aware of this makes all the difference, and that is also all that it takes.

To be aware.

Awareness is powerful, it changes our perspective on whatever we focus it on. It gives us a chance to step outside of the routine of our story and ego identified ways and see them. Seeing ourselves operate like that gives us a choice at that moment to walk away from our own story and let it pass, and instead stay in the awareness. When we choose that, we are instantly in a state of being. It really is as simple as that. But as simple as it is, it is also as powerful. It’s also very hard to do when we are completely committed to our story and think that this is who we are, because this story needs perpetuation in order to keep us from realizing the one thing that this story of ours is designed to hide from us: that we are not permanent. And that scares the hell out of our egos.

But it is really simple. Seeing ourselves operate and going further with that awareness is all it takes to break the cycle of ego identification and instead be. The good news is that this is not a one shot deal – we get to choose this every moment of our lives, again and again. And when we do choose awareness instead of the ole story, our lives are transformed instantly. And then we look for it more and more, because it feels so natural and wonderful. And eventually we lose all these important ideas of who we think we are, and what we think our lives have to be about. It becomes uninteresting and instead we are filled with this sense of momentness (just made up that word).

Next time you are watching yourself do something, stop for a moment and realize what is happening. You are being aware of yourself, plain and simple. Question is, what will you choose at that moment?

Cheers,

Ralf